Hunt the Bismarck

by Angus Konstam

  That morning, the two ships were berthed alongside the quayside in Gotenhafen.4 After breakfast, the fleet commander had a quick meeting with his staff, and with Kapitän Lindemann. Then, shortly before 10.00 he and his senior aides walked along the quay to the Prinz Eugen. V. Adm. Brinkmann met them at the gangway and accompanied Lütjens as he conducted a quick inspection of the ship. Lütjens also chatted with Brinkmann’s officers before he accompanied his fleet commander ashore, then headed to the Bismarck. There, at 10.45, a conference was held on the battleship. Generaladmiral Saalwächter was present, having flown in to Gotenhafen the previous evening. Also present was Lütjens’ chief-of-staff Kapitän Netzbald, who had supervised the detailed planning of Operation Rheinübung. Naturally, captains Lindemann and Brinkmann were there too, and listened as Netzbald outlined the plan for the next few days. As he was speaking, however, the tannoy announced the battleship was preparing for departure, so the conference was kept short.

  The two captains already had their sailing orders, but Netzbald went through them again. The ships would pass through the Great Belt, then continue on through the Kattegat and Skagerrak, and so out into the North Sea. They would then turn northwards, following the Norwegian coast, heading for the Korsfjord (Krossfjord) near Bergen. There, their fuel would be topped up by a waiting tanker. Under cover of darkness, the two ships would continue their journey up the Norwegian coast, until they passed the Arctic Circle. Netzbald outlined the other elements – the destroyer escorts, the minesweepers and the Luftwaffe cover that would be supporting them during the voyage – and finished by emphasising that at sea all ships would need to maintain radio silence. This meant that all signals between the two warships would have to be by lamps or flags. Then he handed over to Lütjens.

  The fleet commander had little to add at that stage, save for the possibility that if the weather allowed it, he might refuel at sea, from a tanker already in position beyond the Arctic Circle – a decision he would make when he reached Norwegian waters.5 He also stated his preference for the Denmark Strait as a route through the British blockade. This, however, might also change, depending on circumstances. A few other points were raised, including the use of aircraft, but essentially the aim of this conference was to make sure both captains knew exactly what was expected of them. Finally, Lütjens stressed that the nature of their mission would be kept secret from the crews until the ships were safely out at sea. The meeting concluded, the conference broke up.

  Saalwächter and his staff went ashore, Brinkmann returned to his ship, which was also bustling with activity, and Lütjens and Lindemann headed to the Bismarck’s bridge. The sky was overcast that morning, which boded well for what would, after all, be a journey that emphasised stealth and avoiding detection. Then, at 11.30, Lindemann gave the order to cast off the lines, and the battleship eased away from the quayside, watched by the Generaladmiral and his staff.6 As they looked on, the ship’s band on the quarterdeck opened up, playing a tune selected by the bandmaster called ‘Muss i denn’. A folk song, written in 1827 by Friedrich Silcher, it was a song of love and leaving, and was later popularised by both Marlene Dietrich and Elvis Presley (as ‘Wooden Heart’). During the war, it was adopted by the Imperial German Navy as a song played on the departure of a warship on a long and arduous voyage. The Kriegsmarine used it too, but for such a secret mission the playing of it was something of a security oversight. As Müllenheim-Rechberg put it:

  I must admit that I was more than a little surprised by this musical advertisement that Rheinübung had begun. I think it highly doubtful that either our Fleet Commander or our captain knew we were to have this musical programme. In all likelihood, it did not occur to any responsible officer that such a thing would happen, and therefore nothing was done to stop it. The bandmaster, aware that our departure was imminent, probably just automatically chose that song without giving the matter another thought.7

  However, it quite effectively told any spies who overheard it that Bismarck and Prinz Eugen weren’t merely going to sea for another exercise. This was the real thing.

  Operation Rheinübung was now officially under way, but in fact it didn’t begin with a long voyage at all. Instead, the two warships went out into the Baltic, and conducted routine exercises for a few hours, in an attempt to make it seem like a normal day. Then, early in the afternoon they returned to the roadstead and dropped anchor before finishing topping up with fuel and stores, and bringing the last batches of extra personnel on board. On the Bismarck, these supernumeraries included the fleet commander’s staff of 65 officers and men, and a prize crew of 80 seamen, whose job it was to guard any prisoners and to board any merchant ships captured intact in the mid-Atlantic.8 In all, a total of 2,221 officers and men were aboard the battleship when she finally sailed from Gotenhafen.

  One incident of note during this process was that while refuelling, a fuel line leading from the tanker to the Bismarck’s fuel valves ruptured, and pumping had to be cut short to prevent even more fuel oil spilling over her decks. This meant that Bismarck was 200 tons short of her fuel capacity. However, neither Lütjens nor Lindemann felt this was overly important. After all, they planned to refuel in either Norway or at sea, beyond the Arctic Circle. Late that evening, under cover of dark, Prinz Eugen prepared to depart, and at 21.18 she recovered her anchors. V. Adm. Brinkmann headed north-east to pass the sandy Hel peninsula (now Mierzeja Helska), guarded by a battery of three huge 16in. guns. He then turned his ship to the west, steaming slowly down the Pomeranian coast, but keeping out of sight of land. Again, the two warships didn’t leave together, in order to confuse any spies in the port. So, it was 02.00 on the morning of 19 May when the Bismarck finally recovered her anchor and followed the same route towards Danish waters.9

  The Gotland

  The voyage down the Pomeranian coast was uneventful, and a cloudy sky and unsettled weather helped reduce the risk of being observed. That morning, after the crew had eaten breakfast, Lindemann addressed them over the ship’s loudspeakers. The rumour had been flying around for weeks and pretty much everyone on board knew they were going on their first operational sortie. Now their captain confirmed it. He told them the plan was to break out into the North Atlantic and spend several months attacking Britain’s trade routes, sinking and capturing enemy merchant shipping. This announcement effectively ended any remaining uncertainty about what was expected of the ship and her crew, as Müllenheim-Rechberg noted: ‘Their apprehension about the unknown was replaced by certainty. Below, the gentle vibration of the engines reminded them of the tremendous power that made their ship a deadly weapon.’10

  At 11.30, the two warships rendezvoused off the white cliffs of Cape Arkona.11 This was the northern tip of the island of Rügen, 190 miles south-west of the Hel peninsula. The Bismarck had already been joined by two German destroyers, the Z-16 Friedrich Eckoldt and the Z-23, under the command of Korvettenkapitän Friedrich Böhme, a veteran of the destroyer battles fought off Narvik the previous year. As the destroyers took station on either side of the battleship, two other small warships, Sp-13 and Sp-31 – both blockade runners or Sperrbrecher – took up position ahead of them. On Lütjens’ command, this powerful force got under way again, and shortly after noon a trio of Luftwaffe fighters appeared. These and others would continue to fly over the task force for the rest of the day. From Cape Arkona it was 75 miles to the start of the Fehmarn Belt, where Prinz Eugen had been damaged by a mine almost four weeks earlier.

  That then led to the Great Belt (or Langelädsbaelt). Waiting for them off its entrance was another destroyer, the Z-10 Hans Lody, the flagship of the 6th Destroyer Flotilla, which had just sailed from Kiel. The flotilla commander, Kapitän Alfred Schulze-Hinrichs, was on board, to take command of the destroyers during the critical passage through the Baltic. Z-10 Hans Lody took station astern of the formation at 22.30, just as the warships entered the entrance to the narrow channel.

  The Great Belt was 85 miles long and the transit through it was expected t
o last until dawn. They were exactly 24 hours behind the schedule requested by the ‘Marburg 5724’ signal, thanks to the problem with the crane, but at least Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were on their way. As a security measure, the Kriegsmarine had ordered the suspension of all maritime traffic through all three of the Danish ‘belts’ that night, so their progress went unobserved.

  As dawn broke on 20 May, the ships emerged from the channel into the wider waters of the Kattegat.12 The two blockade runners were detached, having completed their job of safely leading the way through the channel. By 04.50 they were passing Rosnaes, where the Kattegat opened out into a waterway some 50 miles across. Shortly afterwards, the destroyer Z-10 Hans Lody sounded its air alarm. Aircraft had been spotted approaching from the west, over the Jutland peninsula. The fear was that these were British reconnaissance aircraft or, worse, enemy bombers. It turned out to be a false alarm. This was merely their fighter escort for the day arriving – the Luftwaffe had simply forgotten to tell the Kriegsmarine when and where it would appear. The transit of the Kattegat thus continued.

  Unlike the previous day, it was a bright, clear morning and the sun was out; it would have been a pleasant cruise were it not for the increased risk of the task force being spotted and identified by observers on the neutral coast of Sweden, or among the increasing number of Danish and Swedish fishing boats that they passed once the task force drew north of the little island of Anholt. As Müllenheim-Rechberg remembered it: ‘They seemed to be everywhere, these little white craft with their chugging motors, some of them bobbing up and down beside us. Not only that but steamers from all sorts of countries were passing through the Kattegat.’13 While the Germans were able to restrict maritime traffic in Danish waters, they could do nothing about shipping off the neutral coast of Sweden, or the activities of local fishing boats. There was always the likelihood that some of these vessels would radio the news of their passing to others, and word of the German naval force would eventually reach London.

  On their port side lay the low-lying coast of the Jutland peninsula – part of German-occupied Denmark. To starboard lay Sweden, a neutral country. Despite her status, the intelligence section of the German Naval High Command felt that this neutrality had been damaged by the German invasion of Denmark and Norway the previous spring, and that the Swedes were likely to pass on any intelligence information they had to the British. For this reason, Lütjens decided to keep as far from the Swedish coast as he could, to reduce the risk of being observed. However, this action didn’t take into account any encounter with other neutral ships, or Swedish warships.

  By noon, they were passing the island of Laeso on their port side. Beyond this the Kattegat narrowed, until it ended at Skagen, the northernmost tip of Denmark’s Jutland peninsula. Opposite it, 40 miles away on the Swedish side of the channel, was the city of Gothenburg. Past the line between the two, the Kattegat turned into the Skagerrak, the mouth of the Baltic that lay between Denmark and Norway. So far, their progress had been uneventful. This was about to change.

  Shortly before 13.00, they spotted a warship ahead of them, off the starboard bow. It turned out to be the Swedish light cruiser Gotland. She was a slightly odd warship that had been built during the early 1930s and combined the roles of light cruiser and seaplane carrier.14 As such, she had two twin 6in. turrets, but behind her after turret was a small flight deck, equipped with a catapult. She carried six British-built seaplanes. This odd hybrid was patrolling off Gothenburg when the German task force appeared.

  Gotland’s captain, Angren, duly ordered the sighting to be reported to the naval headquarters in Gothenburg. Then he turned his ship around and shadowed the German task force as it sailed northwards towards the Skagerrak. On board the Bismarck, Admiral Lütjens sent his own signal to Group North’s headquarters in Wilhelmshaven, reporting the sighting, adding that the battleship’s B-Dienst section had detected radio signals being sent from the Swedish cruiser.15 In other words, Lütjens was sure that the Swedish navy now knew Bismarck was at sea, and therefore it was possible that the news would also be passed on to the British. The Gotland, meanwhile, settled on a parallel north-westerly course to that of the Germans and continued to shadow them for an hour, until she finally turned away at the entrance of the Skagerrak.

  To add to the Germans’ security problems, a formation of Swedish aircraft also passed them at noon, while patrolling their side of the Kattegat. Their commander also sent off a sighting report of a very large warship, a cruiser and three destroyers, steering a northerly course. Ten to 12 aircraft were flying over the German force. The German fleet commander had every reason to be concerned about these two sightings, and a third at 15.45, when the Gotland made another report: that in the Skagerrak the German force had held a north-westerly course until it was lost from view.

  Back in Gothenburg, Angren’s two signals had been decoded, then passed up the chain of command to the Swedish Admiralty in Stockholm. A copy was duly passed to the Swedish intelligence service. While officially it was of little importance to the Swedish authorities, there were several Swedes in positions of authority who had no love for Nazi Germany. One of these people was Överstelöjtnant (Lt Col.) Petersén, head of the Swedish secret service. He read a copy of the first signal from the Gotland, and noted it in his log.

  He then very deliberately passed it to his chief-of-staff, Maj. Örlkn (Major) Egon Törnberg. He was half Norwegian, and ever since the German invasion of Norway the previous April had done what he could to help the British. Petersén was almost certainly well aware of this, and of his deputy’s link with Kommandør (Commander) Roscher Lund, the military attaché in Sweden of the Norwegian government in exile, which was based in London. Sure enough, Törnberg arranged an urgent meeting with Lund and passed on a copy of the signal. The next link in the chain was Captain Henry Denham, the British naval attaché in Stockholm.16 In April 1940, Denham had been the naval attaché in Copenhagen when the Germans invaded Norway. He had got out by way of Norway and Finland, and was now performing his old job in the Swedish capital. On the evening of 20 May 1941, he suddenly found himself at the centre of a spy drama.

  Denham was having dinner in a nearby restaurant on the Riddargatan when Kommandør Lund appeared and asked to speak to him. Although they routinely met twice a week, this was the first time that the Norwegian had broken protocol and demanded an urgent and unscheduled meeting. Denham was sure the Germans were bugging his phone and keeping his flat under observation so, rather than talk either there or in the very public restaurant, Denham and Lund cycled to the British embassy, half a mile away. There, Denham ushered Lund into his office and closed the door. Once inside, the Norwegian handed over a transcript of the Gotland signal. It didn’t mention that the source was the Swedish cruiser, but it did state that two German ‘battleships’ and three destroyers had just been sighted off Marstrand, heading towards the north-west.

  Once Lund had gone, the British naval attaché drafted a signal to the Admiralty in London. It repeated the report, and Denham labelled it ‘Most Immediate’. It was transmitted shortly before 21.00. This was the first word the British had that Bismarck had sailed from Gotenhafen.17 This intelligence, together with a subsequent sighting from southern Norway, was enough to convince First Sea Lord Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound that this was an actual operational sortie, and that the Bismarck was leaving the Baltic. On this evidence, he went on to activate the British Home Fleet based in Scapa Flow, and so started the chain of events that would ultimately lead to the Battle of the Denmark Strait, and the pursuit of Bismarck across the North Atlantic.

  Through the Skagerrak

  Meanwhile, Admiral Lütjens realised that even if the British learned that his force had sailed, he still had the initiative, and was determined that the mission would continue. He also had more important concerns than the mere possibility that the Swedes had reported his presence to the enemy. As Generaladmiral Carls said in his reply to Lütjens’ signal to Group North that afternoon: �
�I do not think the danger of being compromised by a Swedish warship is any greater than from the already present, systematic enemy surveillance of the entrance to the Baltic.’18 This raised a very valid point. The Skagerrak was blocked by German minefields, which funnelled any approaching ships into clearly defined lanes. While this made it easier for the Germans to patrol the entrance to the Baltic, it also made it easier for British submarines to keep these channels under surveillance. The same submarines could also launch torpedo attacks at high-value targets – and none was more valuable than the Bismarck.

  Still, when the task force headed off towards the north-west steering a course of 300°, the Gotland was left behind, as she stayed resolutely inside Swedish territorial waters. The danger now was from British submarines, which were known to patrol the Skagerrak.19 With this in mind, the task force took basic precautions. First, the escorting destroyers formed an anti-submarine screen around the larger ships, with Z-10 Hans Lody in the lead, then Z-16 Friedrich Eckoldt to port and Z-23 to starboard. Overhead flew six Messerschmitt Bf 110 twin-engined fighter-bombers, while a pair of Heinkel He 115 seaplanes scouted in front, looking for the telltale white wake of a submarine periscope. Ahead of them lay the start of the belt of protective minefields. Waiting for them there, at a prearranged rendezvous point, were the small vessels of the 5th Minesweeping Flotilla, commanded by Fregattenkapitän Rudolf Lell.

  So far, everything had gone smoothly, apart from the encounter with the Gotland and the Swedish aircraft. Then Z-10 Hans Lody sounded the alarm. Their lookouts had spotted a solitary aircraft far ahead of them – possibly a British reconnaissance plane. Clearly, it couldn’t come too close because of the fighter cover over the German task force, but there was now a good chance they’d been spotted. The British made regular flights over the Skagerrak to check on shipping movements and today their timing couldn’t have been worse for the Germans. It soon disappeared, however, leaving the skies free, apart from German aircraft. Still, it was disconcerting for Lütjens. Ahead of them lay the main passage through the minefield, the minesweeper flotilla and a cluster of merchant ships, waiting to pass through the cleared channel.